Hesh1956 wrote:From my perspective they all suck.......
Once again America has a choice between dumb and dumber......
... you know what that means...... grandpa and the hottie will be getting my vote.
I guess I'm surprised that anyone in the USA is looking for a candidate from one of the two major political parties to be a knight in shining armor, experienced in war and dedicated to peace, possessing a mighty prowess in long-term macroeconomics, knowledgeable in world affairs to a degree that would humble King Solomon, and able to heal and unite a country torn by eight years of divisive policies and politics. Quite frankly, the closer any human comes to fitting that description, the more he or she would be shouted down as elitist anyway, at least by half the country - the half with the "other" political affiliation.
Our country is so divided, that no matter what stance you take on any issue, you are immediately labeled as a radical by the other side. Anyone attempting to be a moderate or a centrist is hated by both sides. Heads you win; tails I lose.
We elect people who are by and large, unable to solve immediate domestic issues, and of course are ill-prepared to be major world leaders. When we do manage to get it right and elect someone who actually does manage to solve solve immediate domestic issues and is a genuinely effective world leader (like Bill Clinton), fully half of the nation wants that leader to die a miserable death because they were not a member of the correct political party.
Politics in America attracts multimillionaires, for the most part. One fourth of our citizens work very hard but cannot afford health care and at least one half of our citizens struggle to pay their bills, and we have a cluster of multimillionaires sitting in a room deciding what is best for us.
Due to the way political gains up the ladder are structured (incumbents and candidates beholden to contributors and lobbyists), it is nearly impossible to bring a "clean" candidate up for election to a major office. Admittedly, Obama's decision to
forsake public funding was strategic, but due to this and disclosures of his contributor base, it appears that Obama may be the "cleanest" candidate for high public office in my lifetime.
Politicians as a group have generally been proven to be disingenuous liars that will say just about anything to get into office. You either have to dismiss every single word that every candidate says and simply vote based on who you want to hold the cattle prod for the next term, or you read and listen to the words and attempt to discern whether maybe, just maybe, one of the candidates actually has a long-term strategy to begin the process of turning America around. (No one, and I mean NO ONE, can take our country in it's present state and turn it around in four years. At most, someone can stop the bleeding, apply some salve, and chart a course toward our nation's health.) Few US citizens will ever bother to read the words of the major candidates, preferring instead to allow a familiar and trusted talking head on TV to explain - in terms a retarded child can understand - which candidate is "good" and which candidate is "bad." If any US citizen takes the time to pay attention to and read the words, the plans, the ideas offered by the candidates in 2008, there emerges two very clear and distinct choices upon which a voting decision could be formed. But that would require reading.
The statistics for everything from our abysmal economy, the corroding state of our national infrastructure, the degree to which our constitutional freedoms have been usurped, our deplorable - even laughable - national identity on the world stage, the dumbed-down state of public education, the complicity of our government with extractive industries and the appalling record of disregard to our environment, our lack of long-term national goals to achieve energy independence, and the callous disregard for the dignity and health of the vast majority of Americans who stoke the furnaces and till the fields... Every US citizen should be outraged. We should have pitchforks and torches, subpoenas and indictments for the people who have created this immense and totally incomprehensible clusterfuck that America has devolved into. There should be no question in the minds of 95% of Americans that the current robber barons that control our country need to be at least dethroned if not imprisoned.
But, more than half of this country I love and call home are sleepwalking through life, oblivious to the cliff at the head of the line of lemmings we have become. We believe talking heads on television. Talking heads bought and paid for by the same ruling elite that grind our bones. We are easily distracted. An exciting sporting event, a supermodel with big boobs, a catchy pop song, and we are diverted from any protracted struggle to regain our country. Tens of millions of us are on drugs like Prozac, Zoloft, and Paxil to quench any spark we used to have. We have the attention span of a kindergarten child. We do go softly into the night. We are no longer "mad as hell" and we have given in, and given up - we will no longer rage against the machine, fight the good fight, overcome all odds. We shall not overcome. We are too tired. We just want to lay down. Everything will be just fine. We are sheep. baaaaa baaaaa We are drifting, drifting... We are alseep zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ...
pssssssssssst! psssssssssssssssssst! Hey US citizens... While you were sleeping, an old, white man who cannot remember how many houses he owns, and who voted over 90% of the time in agreement with GW Bush's policies is poised to become the next president. His strategy to "fix" America is "Drill, baby, drill!", and though it seems to be oil that is the subject, the reality is that We the People are expected to bend over and be drilled. This man has stated that the war in Iraq may last another hundred years. And, it gets better - if he dies, the USA will have as president a person that believes the Earth was created in seven days, approximately 6000 years ago, and who has said that the war in Iraq was "a task from God." Might not be a good time to vote based on who is a hottie, or which party showed disrespect to a former candidate.
Dennis